Hi I'm a good friend of a father who has a teenage son who lives next door to me. ( The father doesn't live next door his son and sons mother do)
We are really worried about the young man suffering from emotional abuse and isolation from his dad and school and getting to go out and play.
His father has collected loads of evidence and passed it on to his solicitor, he has rung child services many times. At one point he was ringing every day until they said for him not to ring anymore because they will get back to him. This was about 8 weeks ago and he still hasn't heard anything from them. He has had no contact with his son over the holidays because the young man's mum won't allow it. She is an alcoholic.
I have alerted NSPCC. Child services started by ringing the father to get information but it has all stopped he has heard nothing.
He will be talking to an MP soon to see if they can apply some pressure on child services to act.
The father and myself and my partner are really really concerned but we keep coming to a dead end. What can we do?

It is great that you are so concerned about your young neighbour but unfortunate that children’s services do not appear to be acting speedily to look into what is happening to him.

You say that his father is very concerned and has a solicitor to whom he has provided evidence. Is the father making an application to the court for his son to live with him? I am not sure why he is giving evidence to a solicitor when it is children’s services who has the responsibility to ensure that a child is being care for safely. Children’s services role is one of safeguarding and they should act when they receive a referral. Please see our advice sheet about what should happen when children’s services receive a referral.

Your friend should consider making a formal complaint if his concerns about his son is not been treated seriously. Our advice sheet relating to complaints is here for your information.

As a referral has been made to the NSPCC, I think the matter is now in hand as they will make the appropriate contact with children’s services.

It is not, I do not think very helpful to be calling every day, it does not allow time for action to be taken.
Should our friend or you wish to speak to an adviser, please telephone our free advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

Thank you for your advice.
The father is going to apply to the court to fight for custody but also against the mother for the way she is treating their son.
I believe he has also given child services evidence.
The evidence has been collected over a couple of years since the father realised when his son started talking to him more along with other incidents that have happened.
The mother has been isolating their son from school, friends and his father.
The NSPCC have acted and passed on my information and child services spoke to the father but since the last call he had from them (child services) he hasn't even had an update and it has been a long time in-between then and now.
I will pass this information on to him and thanks again.

Social services won't just take what dad and his friend say, they will be doing checks with the relevant professionals, such as GP, school ect, if they have no concerns then social services will not usually take it any further. For example If a school, where the child is every day, has no concerns then the social tend to go with the school. Unfortunately there's alot of jealous and controlling exes that use social services maliciously as a way of getting to their ex or continuing to abuse them, so social take referals from exes and their friends lightly unless it's backed up by professionals. I assume the childs school or GP hasn't rang social services so there isn't technically any professional welfare concerns. Also ringing every day doesnt look good in the socials eyes. I'd say from that the social have decided this is malicious, especially if they have done background and welfare checks and nothing has come up. Your friend is going to have to do this without social services and pay to make a private application to court. The court, if they except the application to begin with, will usually order a section 7 report done by cafcass, this is the time for your friend to raise any concerns. A social worker may also be put on the case. But rather than wait for the social he needs to make a private application. His solicitor should have already advised him to do this by now as social would have acted by now if they had any concerns, if they were to act suddenly so long after the referral the mother and her solicitor could argue it in court easily enough. my ex tried to use the social as a way of them applying to court so he could get it all for free. It's going to cost your friend £215 for the application and any fees for legal on top of that. He may, depending on the judge, also be asked to pay for any assessments to be done by cafcass or social workers with it being his private application. However unless the court finds serious concerns and decides mother isn't fit then an application for residence will probably be refused for dad and a contact order will be put in place instead.

I hear what you are saying about exes using social services to get what they want.
This is definitely not the case.
I live next door to this guy's ex gf and their son.
She is actually being abusive towards her son and only yesterday I had to call police on 999 because I was really worried about him he was outside with only his trousers on in the cold no socks or shoes no top crying his eyes out and very frustrated
Luckily all assessments are being done .
The father has a solicitor and has collected a lot of evidence with the solicitor.
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